Summary: Expect God to be made manifest in your life.

I know that most of you have not been kept up nights wondering about Epiphany. A large number of people have never heard of Epiphany, and although I had heard of it, it never really dawned on me that anyone might actually celebrate it until I visited Germany in January of 1979.

Epiphany falls on January 6, on the 12th day of Christmas–the day you’re supposed to get 12 drummers drumming and the day we commonly remember the arrival of the Wise Men in Bethlehem. In Germany and a number of other countries, this is a big event. Children dress up as kings and travel from door to door–much as we do on Halloween–only instead of collecting for themselves, they collect for the poor, remembering that the wise men brought gifts to the poor Christ child.

Seeing those children out in their costumes was the first contact I had with anybody actually celebrating epiphany, and it started me wondering if we weren’t missing something. Well, the more you look into church history, the more you realize that we are missing a lot of things. Epiphany in the early church was one of the great feast days–second only to Easter in its importance. The third great feast was Pentecost, another day that has drifted into religious backwaters. And even Easter is greatly watered down today. Easter used to be celebrated with an all-night vigil the night before and then the celebration continued on for what was called the “Great 50 Days” ending with a huge blowout on Pentecost. Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost were the focus of the church. Nobody even thought about celebrating Christmas until the fourth century.

So what’s the deal? Or, as one of my seminary professors used to ask, “How come nothing epiphs on Epiphany anymore?” Why was Epiphany so important, and why is it so unimportant now?

For those few who might have heard of Epiphany, chances are that you will know it as the day the Wise Men came. And that is right–partially. The word Epiphany means “manifestation” or “revelation.” So the Wise Men are celebrated on Epiphany because they represented the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles. But it used to be that Epiphany celebrated more than the Wise Men.

In the days when Epiphany was a great church feast, it also celebrated the revelation of Jesus in his first miracle–changing water into wine at Cana–and the manifestation of Jesus as the Son of God at his baptism. Those three things–the Wise Men, Cana, and the Baptism were all lumped together to symbolize the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, and such revelation was cause for great celebration.

That a baby was born in a manger was relatively unimportant, compared with the events that proved to the world who that baby was. The authority of Jesus was validated by the signs he performed–like changing water into wine–by the voice of God and descending dove at his baptism, and through signs in the heavens that could be interpreted by the Gentiles. Those signs were God’s way of saying, “Pssst...this is the guy!” and Epiphany was the church’s way of saying, “And we can never be the same again.”

Related Media

Talk about it...

Gary Brice

0 days ago

Dear Anne,
Not being from a liturgical background, I have had little exposure to the idea of Epiphany. But as a result of your priceless sermon, I will hold Epiphany dear to my heart and celebrate it with anticipation and excitement. Thank you, dear sister, for the wonderful gift that is your message. God bless the heart that shaped, it. Sincerely, G. Brice